Episode 212 Raising Resilient Teens: Confidence, Self-Worth & Emotional Fluency

Your teenager came to you upset. You said "go sort yourself out." Here's what they actually needed.

In this episode, Lindsay sits down with Laura Ollinger — teen and parent wellbeing coach, speaker and mom of FOUR teenagers (yes, all at once) — for a conversation that is equal parts real talk and practical gold.

Laura shares how a personal tragedy and her daughter's anxiety brought her back to school in her 40s, and why she built a coaching practice that works with both kids AND parents — because coaching a teen once a week means nothing if the home environment isn't on board.

This one is a must-listen if your teen has ever come home emotional and you didn't quite know what to do with it.

What We Cover

• The Big 5 stressors teens are navigating right now 
• The think-feel-do-have cycle and how subconscious beliefs quietly run the show
• How to listen for "black and white" language in your teen and what to do when you hear it
• Why emotional fluency at the dinner table is one of the most powerful things you can build
• The difference between "was there anything good?" and "what was good?" (tiny, but it changes everything)
• What a calm, connected family culture actually looks like — spoiler: it's not perfect, it's present
• How keeping an emotional pulse on your kids, without judgment, is success worth celebrating

Key Takeaway

You don't need a perfect family. You need a connected one. If you know your son is tired and worried about algebra, and your daughter had a rough day before she even walked through the door — that awareness IS the work. Give yourself the credit.

Resources + Links Mentioned

• Laura Ollinger's website: positivelyhealthycoaching.com
• Laura's podcast: The Positively Healthy Mom
• Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy (bench metaphor)

Connect with Laura

• Website: positivelyhealthycoaching.com
• Find all her social links on her website

Loved this episode?

Share it with a parent in your life who could use a little more calm this week. And if you have a minute, leave a review — it helps other families find the show.

For more tools and support: thestressnanny.com

Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and  host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks  and playful laugh. When she's not cheering on her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using  her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. 

To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here. 

To review the podcast click here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to the Stress Nanny, the podcast where we help kids and parents build calm, confidence, and connection. I'm your host, Lindsay Miller, Kids Mindfulness Coach and Cheerleader for Busy Families Everywhere. Each week we'll explore simple tools, uplifting stories, and practical strategies to help your child learn emotional regulation, resilience, and self-confidence, while giving you a little more peace of mind too. I'm so glad you're here. My guest today is Laura Ollinger. She's a teen and parent well-being coach, speaker, and certified parent-child whisperer who helps families move from stress and disconnection to calm confidence and connection. A mom of four teens, she brings humor, heart, and science to the challenges of raising emotionally healthy kids in a noisy comparison-driven world. Blending neuroscience and positive psychology, Laura teaches practical mindset and communication tools that help parents model the self-worth, confidence, and resilience their kids need to thrive. Her signature keynote, The Decider, empowers both teens and parents to focus on what they can control, strengthen emotional resilience, and lead with intention instead of fear. Laura holds a master's in health and wellness education, is a National Board certified health and wellness coach, and a licensed neuroencoding specialist. She has trained under Tony Robbins, Joseph McClendon III, Dr. Daniel Eymon, Dr. Shafali, Love and Logic, and Positive Parenting Solutions, and she's based in Austin, Texas. Laura, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited for our conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, thanks so much. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Okay, so talk to us a little bit before we get started about how you got into this work and what about supporting families in this way is meaningful to you.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Thank you for asking that. It's very, very personal to me. So years ago, there was a series of events that happened in my family. And I was already interested in the work, but that kind of compounded my, I guess, intensity and speed into which I got started. And so the first thing was my nephew died by suicide when he was 20 years old. And obviously, I don't even need to explain that, but that was profound. And the other thing was my daughter, she had been struggling with anxiety at school from even almost like first grade, sometimes looking back at it, but really fourth grade is when it took hold. And so it was kind of like as a mom, how can I help her? What resources are available? And then that's just what got me started. So I went back to school in my 40s. I got a master's in health and wellness education. I'm National Board certified health and wellness coach. I'm also a life coach, which is kind of a lot of neuropsychology. So just all sorts of certifications in there, neurolinguistic programming, all these things. And so I combine that with a lot of parenting education. And so to me, it's important to talk to the parent because I do most of my clients are teenagers. That's who I work with. I coach one-on-one. But I have a very important part of my program, which is I include the parents in on that because I can coach a team once a week for an hour. But unless you have that support, it's not going to stick. It's not going to hold. Like I was saying to a mom recently, she really wanted me to do some of the heavy lifting. I said, Yeah, but what happens if in a year or two years something else happens? You're not going to call me back and rehire me. You need to be able to have the tools and the resources to be able to kind of take it from here. So that's how I got into it.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah, no, I can relate to that so deeply because similarly, I work with kids, the youngest is six and up to 18. And it is so important when you have the parents learning alongside the kids because they feel empowered, right? Like you're saying, they've got what they need in order to address different situations that come up or apply the tools in different moments. So I love that's part of the way that you approach coaching as well. And it does sound like such a meaningful entry point, right? Where it's like sometimes what our kids need, it gives us the motivation to learn and grow and stretch in ways that maybe we wouldn't have otherwise. Right. And then I'm so sorry about your nephew. Like the meaning that comes from honoring someone's struggles with the work that you do in the world. That's that's pretty incredible, also.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah, thank you so much. And it's funny how I'm my own client many days because I have four kids. I have four teenagers right now. My oldest is now a senior in high school, closing out the semester here, getting ready to graduate. But I also have a sophomore, a freshman, and a seventh grader. And so things that I teach my own clients, I do all the time with my own kids or on myself. I mean, I don't coach my kids, but just some of the tools that I use, I just make that up. But they don't even know I'm doing it just because they just think that's who I am, which I am. Like you become, you become really your ideal client because you are a living, breathing example of the types of things that we talk about on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think too, my daughter Jessica and I will talk a lot about how she's my biggest teacher, right? And I think that's what you're talking about, also, to where if she is struggling with something or if she's trying to make some progress with something, and I'm trying to figure out like what support she needs in order to do that. Sometimes there's a clear path to that support, and sometimes you do a little research and digging and you figure it out. Yeah. And then in those moments, you're at least for me, I'm like, I want this to be something everyone has access to, right? You put the effort in to kind of figure out the solutions or creatively address developmental hurdle, and you're like, hey, let's crowdsource this because moms, we gotta help each other out wherever we can, right? And so giving voice to that wisdom that we've received from interacting with kids, I feel like is meaningful too. Yeah, totally, a hundred percent. Yeah. Okay, well, one of the things I love too is that you use research-based methodology. You're drawing on this lived experience and coupling it with research, coupling it with practices that are proven to be supportive in different scenarios. So, given that approach, you're mindful of a lot of the stressors that modern families face, right? Because you're steeped in it yourself, and then you're navigating the research that you know is pointing to those issues. What do you see as some of the biggest stressors that the families navigate?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah. Well, there's the big five, I guess I'm calling them. It's worrying about their future, stress about future, future planning, what classes to take now, what college, what SAT, what ACT, you know, all the all that stuff, right? Like I could go on and on. Everybody knows they're like, oh yeah, I know what we're talking about. Appearance, kind of image, physical things related, social networks, social belonging. Do I fit in? Am I weird? Am I normal? I embarrass myself today, kind of just that inclusive part. And then we've got academics, right? That's kind of part of the future planning, but it's also just very much a lot of times kids really just internalize that. I'm good, I'm bad. I got a bad grade, I'm not smart, right? And so it might not have anything to do with the future, but it's how they see themselves on the inside. And then last, just the pressure with the extracurriculars. That's a big one. I do tons, so I have my own podcast. It's the positively healthy mom, which I'd love to have you as a guest on there. And I've had so many coaches as guests come on my podcast because it's just a conversation that keeps happening over and over again. How extreme pressure kids feel. And then same with parents and the amount of money we put into these things and club sports. And are they gonna play in college or did we do all this for nothing? That's like what some parents think, right? It's the opposite, right? Like if you're doing something amazing for your kid, they are getting so much out of it. It does not have to lead to a future in professional sports. So, yeah, so those are the big ones. And what I mentioned, kids are feeling this every day, right? Every single day. And I think about the amount of pressure we felt growing up, and that's nothing compared to, and then we're gonna put the whole blanket on top of this, the social media where everything that I just mentioned is then advertised in some way, shape, or form on social media or kind of thrown in our face or made to, you know, just sometimes compare, think less of ourselves because we're seeing other people and we're like, oh, well, I didn't get that right. It's just human nature to do that. So that's all the stuff, which I'm sure everybody hearing this can like totally relate to at least one, if not all those things.

Self Worth Builds Resilience

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Oh, 100%. Yeah. No, and I love how succinctly you just categorized everything. Because I think that there's so much value in naming it to tame it, right? And how when we can identify the stressor, we can work with it more skillfully. But if it's just this like random feeling of foreboding, we just don't really even know what to do with it, right? But if we can say, here, it's probably one of these five, let's look at it and see. Because there's some things we do to build resilience that are general, right? And that can address each of those five areas in different ways. But there's this baseline resilience that we're trying to teach kids. There's a confidence piece to that, right? And there's a self-worth piece to that. So talk to us about those two things specifically. How do confidence and self-worth kind of help us build this foundation through which we can garner some strength to address each of those areas?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, you kind of said that where it is the foundation, it's the piece. It's no matter where you show up in your life, if you believe in yourself, you believe you're worthy, you believe you have a place at the table or a belonging in some sense, that's gonna build on itself a positive cycle. And everything that you do is then gonna be an upward cycle. So for example, I teach this model, which most people are familiar with in our world. Sorry, not everybody, which is just think, feel, do have. So our thoughts, you know, come from our beliefs. And most of the time, our beliefs are not necessarily something we consciously go around thinking about. People think the belief is just like, oh, I believe in Santa Claus. That's not what I'm talking about. It's these internal subconscious beliefs that we start to build from the time we're born, really, and we gain these or gather these from our environment, a lot at times mostly from our parents, any other caregivers that might be in the house or that we have a lot of like close contact with. So, anyway, our beliefs are what kind of the backbone of our thoughts, and our thoughts create our feelings about things. Our feelings create our behaviors, and then our behaviors create those actions, and those actions create the results. So it's think, feel, do, we do, and then we have. This is what we have because of what we did.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, I love that. That's such a great model. And I have a different conceptualization for it with similar underpinnings, right? And I think that there's so much value in, like you said, identifying the kind of subconscious or non-voluntary thoughts that are a part of that, right? To where there are moments where we are thinking a thing and we might get really stuck in it, and only to realize, like, actually, do I that's not even true, you know, valid, resonant. This is one of my favorite things to help kids with. What are some of the things you do to help people a just stop and identify the thought, right? Because half the time we're like five miles down the beaten path with a thought before we realize, oh, is this even a thought I want to be following? How do you help people stop and recognize and then be selective?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, great question. So, my way of going about it is I'm just listening to the language. So, what I'm looking for is all or nothing, extreme statements, black or white. Nobody likes me. I'm never gonna learn how to do this thing. I am never gonna be popular, I'm never gonna get into a good college, or even things that are not as black and white, but things that are not empowering. So language like this is so hard, it's so difficult, I can't do it, right? And so it's like, really? It's really hard. Okay, tell me how it's hard. There's like five steps to do my science project, and so it's so hard because there's all these steps. Okay, how can we make it easy? Kids like, I don't know. I'm like, okay, let's figure out how can we make this easy? Okay, so we can take five steps, maybe split them up over five weeks. Maybe we do one a week. Is that easy? Yeah, that's easy, right? So, really, what I'm doing is I like to say I'm playing lawyer where I can disprove anything that they're trying to tell me, and then that's when they start to question it. And it's not my job to question their beliefs, it's their job to question their beliefs. I'm just asking the questions. I'm just kind of throwing stuff against the wall and see what sticks because I don't know them. It really is hard. But if I ask enough questions, they're gonna find a oh maybe a break in that where it's like, oh wait, actually, yeah, I can do that. Maybe it's not that hard after all, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, totally. Like a way to make it manageable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love what you said about like how can we make it easy? And I think one of the things I was just telling a story about this the other day, where my daughter came home and she'd had a rough workout. She's a rower and she'd had a really rough work workout. Hadn't gone the way she wanted. And you know, rowing is one of those sports where it's like swimming, where your numbers are telling you the direct feedback every time, right? And so anyway, it was interesting because I said, Well, how are you feeling right now? And then I was like, Well, how do you want to be feeling right now? Right. It's and it's like what you're saying. If we can envision a different scenario and just get there with some words, there's very little else that has to change, right? If we can change a situation with our thoughts. Because then if the strategy can come, right, the creativity can come and we can reframe it. So I love that. You look for the crack and like, where's their space to reframe? Where is there space to envision a different scenario that's more aligned with how I want to be feeling in this moment and less aligned with this feeling, like a heavy, impossible feeling?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Mm-hmm. And really finding out what's important to the individual, because I find that some people have just this death grip. It's like this desire or need to control something so badly. And we ask, what is really important? What's underneath that? What are you really getting from that? We find that it's really not that thing at all, that really what they're needing is something else. And so then they can just like just relax, just breathe. Oh, I can get this need met by doing this other thing. That actually makes me feel better than trying so hard to control this thing.

Staying With Big Teen Feelings

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Totally. Yeah, I love that. And it's really interesting too, because it's a simple shift, right? When I'm talking with parents, and I'm sure when you're talking with parents, there's this tendency to want the discomfort to go away. And I feel that too, right? When I'm talking to my teenager and or my dog is barking in the background of our podcast and it's uncomfortable. I'm wanting that tendency to go away, right? I don't want to deal with it. And so I was talking to a friend the other day, and she's like, What do I do? My teenage son, he's just so emotional. And I'm like, Well, actually, that's his job right now. You know, I mean, it's actually good if he's coming to you with the emotions. Let's call that a win, right? Yeah. But I think that the tendency is to to maybe push it away. And she's like, Okay, because my MO has been to say you need to sort yourself out and then come back when you're sorted, or I don't want to see that, go figure it out. You know what I mean? And she's like, I know it's not good, but uh I don't know what to do with what he's feeling, and I don't want to feel that way either. So we're just kind of back and forth about figure yourself out. He doesn't have the tools. I think what you just described, there's so much there that it's just a choice to engage, right? Like this kind of creativity is something we can practice if we just choose to engage with our kid and their emotion or their discomfort or their angst or whatever it is, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Yeah, and I even would say that I love that example of your friend because I would ask myself, what do I need in this moment? And then if I were that teenage boy, what would I need in this moment? And maybe what a teenager needs is just a listening ear. Maybe what he needs is no criticism, but somebody who can support him, right? And so it's just what do we need here? And then how as a parent can I provide that? How can I be a listening ear without the judgment, without the whatever? And sometimes I have a feeling you're really big on this, is just take the deep breath, take a pause, take five minutes, whatever you might need, so you can regulate, because I know it's like emotional regulation, and then okay, I'm ready for it. Come talk to me, share what's going on, right? And just be that open person and not that like you described, the pushing away or go figure it out yourself, right? It's like they don't have to, they don't need to. That's kind of our job, right? If we're really connected as a parent, our role is to be that person.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Yeah, yeah, that's so well put. And I think in those moments, it's you know, for her, what it looked like was her sitting in her own uncertainty about how to handle it, right? And it's like what you said if you can just take the deep breath and be there and just be the person in the room taking the deep breath, I mean, that goes a really long way in those moments. And like you said, if you can just be present with whatever is going on, there's huge gains that happen, right? And sometimes without us doing anything except reflecting back or, like you said, asking a few simple questions. And I think my friend, she's a problem solver, she's like a strong boss lady businesswoman, right? And so she wants to fix the thing, right? You know, and as moms and parents in general, we generally want to try to help our kids at least fix the stuff. And so for her, yeah, it was definitely a reframe. And we talked a little bit about how her job was maybe just to be in the emotion with him, as you suggested, and be the person who could have a bit of steadiness amidst someone else's discomfort or dysregulation. And she was like, Oh, that's all I have to do. Yeah. And it's easier said than done sometimes, right? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

It's actually funny that that's how you described her because I do some amount of speaking to groups and whatnot. And uh, there's a talk that I'm working on, and the title is I'm still working, play, I'm still playing with the words, but it's why what works at work doesn't work at home. Oh, yes, yeah. Because, you know, moms and dads who do have that personality where they're leaders or they're running something and they're used to efficiency and goals and standards and ROI and all these things, and they get at home and they're trying to run it the same way, and that doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Yeah. When it's tricky too. One of the things we talked about was like limited time for connection because she's home from work, it's after school, it's late, everybody's trying to do their thing, you know? And so she's like wanting something that feels relatively efficient, right? Just simply because there's only so many hours that they all have together after school, right? And there's a lot that has to go into those hours. And so I love that talk. I want to hear the talk. Um where it's like, how can you translate some of those skills or ways that you show up at work into this home environment, but soften it or change it or shift it a little bit so that you can still have the bearing of the leader, but show up in a way that is maybe a little bit more emotionally connected because there's a different kind of work we're doing at home.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yes, totally. Yeah. I have lots more examples, but I'll go totally off track. So you're podcast for another day. I know where I I just I'm gonna lock in. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah. And let's talk about this again from like the parent point of view, because there's the tendency to maybe push it away, but then there can also be the tendency to overbear, right? And in those situations, manage it. And I think for those of us who may be prone to that, what are some of the strategies you offer in that parenting realm where kids can show up in a meaningful way and feel that connection and sense of support for their child, but also let their child do the hard thing on their own?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, I mean the thing that that kind of trying to fix or solve or whatever that is, is because we're trying to protect them from a mistake or pain or failure, right? And so if you just become more comfortable with the fact that you're actually doing your child a disservice, you're actually setting them up for failure in the long term, you're actually decreasing their resilience, you're actually decreasing their problem solving. The very thing you're trying to get them to do, which is be a problem solver, become increasingly independent over time, learn from mistakes, you're robbing them of that opportunity, right? And so it is this constant dance like how do I support without fixing? And for me personally, I really allow my own kids to lead the way. Like they know I'm there. The two questions I teach my parent clients to ask their kids do you just need to vent or do you need some help with that? And sometimes it's both. Sometimes it's I just need a vent. Sometimes it's I actually really need help with this. I don't know how to write this email to my teacher. I don't know what to say on this job interview. Can you help me figure this out? And so, first of all, balls in their court, allow them to guide you with what kind of support that you're providing. And again, never overstepping, not giving them something they didn't ask for.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah, so well put. And I think one of the things that's been striking to me lately as the parent of a junior in high school is how that dance can change depending on the season that you're in or the developmental hurdle that you're facing. Right. And so in my mind, there's like this path we're meandering where you have certain skill sets, and I'm like, oh, I don't have to worry about that anymore. She's got that down. And then we hit something that feels really big and scary, like thinking about college or talking about college or interacting with college coaches, to your point about extracurriculars, and then saying to ourselves, okay, we actually don't have all the skills we need for this moment. And maybe there needs to be a bit of shoring up or a different kind of support. So it's just been an interesting dance because there were some things I'm like, oh yeah, she's completely independent in this sphere, right? And then now I'm like, oh, actually, she's needing a bit of support to maybe launch into the next developmental stage that she Going into. And I think as a parent, sometimes that can catch us off guard, right? If our preschooler who's thrilled about preschool is all of a sudden a little bit nervous about kindergarten, or there's, you know, just times when maybe our role has to kind of shift or backtrack a little bit. And in the families that I work with, one thing I see is some angst around that, you know, and some frustration. And I think sometimes people need tools for sure. And sometimes there are big emotions that need to get managed. And then other times it's like normalizing some of the moments. Would you agree?

Teaching Life Skills Step By Step

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yeah, yeah. I I like that. I mean, really, like we are saying, it's kind of just day by day, right? It might be two steps forward, one step back. It might be they're completely self-sufficient in this, but they still need support with this. And one of the things that I see a lot of frustration with my clients is parents who want their kids to have the life skills and set up their own doctor's appointments, go pick up their own prescription, whatever they need to do to just be because they're getting ready to launch, right? And sometimes that does need to be broken down. And I had a client, this is a long time ago, the daughter was incredibly academically bright. Like she was at the top of her class. And the dad did not understand why she couldn't make this phone call to set up her appointment. And I'm like, these skills are not the same, these are very, very different. Yeah. So we broke it down, right? And and so we had him learn this is a different skill set. And we started small with her. We broke it into steps. Her step was her assignment for the week was to call and order pizza. She needed to learn the skills to pick up a phone because kids these days they don't know how to really make a phone call. So that was her assignment to order pizza. Okay, so next week, then we're gonna model how to set up that appointment. So I had the dad call and make his own appointment for another thing he needed. And the daughter just sat there and listened. And it was on speakerphone so that way she could hear what they're asking. Oh, when do you want to come? What are you being seen for? Is your insurance still the same? All the questions. So that way she was then prepared, right? And so you have to kind of layer this in. And some parents, like he again, he at the beginning, he just did not understand why she couldn't do it. And so we're still teaching them some very basic skills, even at 16, 17, 18 years old.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Yes, yeah. And this is why I thought of the this kind of tangent that we're going on is that like asking the question, what do you need right now? Do you actually need help to figure out how to make this a doctor's appointment? If you do, no judgment from me. Let's just, you know, you said make a plan to teach you that thing. But I think sometimes the frustration comes in and there's just emotion on both sides, and we're not actually getting to the root of what's going on. But with those simple questions that you mentioned, we can kind of find our way into what's at the core of this? What's what's actually going on here? And then once we get there, it's like you said, you can come up with a step-by-step way to layer in the skills and make sure that this is a skill set they launch with, but everyone just getting stuck in their own frustration doesn't help us move down the path at all.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah, and that does create a lot of conflict because a lot of times parents misinterpret the situation and they think their child is being lazy or they're procrastinating or they're they're not listening, they're ignoring them, right? They're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And really it's just they just don't know how, but they also don't know how to ask for help without getting lectured at. They don't want to get the lecture, so they'd rather just not do it and get yelled at than like right, can you help me and then get this big thing they didn't know?

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Yes, yeah, that was so beautifully put. Yes, totally. Well, and again, I think if there's a high achieving kid, right, who is reticent to admit that there is maybe some aspect of this that A feels really scary, or B, it actually have no idea to how to do. And I think with our kids who are high achieving, I think there's so much value in normalizing those moments for them too, right? And I think sometimes as parents, we can get to a place where we're like your client, you can do all this other stuff. Surely you can do this. Or with my friend the other day, you know, she's like, he's so independent and does all this stuff on his own, but all of a sudden he's super emotional about all this stuff. What's going on? Oh, well, that's actually normal. Yeah, you know, these are all really normal moments. And I think in our vision of maybe how our kids grow or how kids in general grow, we take maybe an unrealistic view sometimes of the capacity at any given age. And then we layer that with our own shame or guilt about not having maybe taught the child the thing. And that you know what I mean? And then the emotional complexity of the moment is such that we're just having a hard time thinking clearly or rationally about the basic skills needed.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah, I know, right? It's really an exercise in self-compassion for self as a parent, and then teaching and modeling that self-compassion for child so they don't start learning that beating them up process because that's just a road to nowhere, right? That's never gonna help anybody. So, you know, it's the language, it's the reframing. We're still learning, we're growing, we're trying, we can make a mistake and it's gonna be okay because we can try and again, right? All that just softening, right? It's like you can hear almost just the difference from the beginning when I was talking about that black and white language to just like gray zones, softening. It doesn't have to be perfect. Okay, right.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah, totally. And I just took a class on building confidence and some of the cornerstones to confidence. And one of the things we talked about was the idea that the growth mindset is essential for confidence. And in the long term, a lot of times we base our confidence on the things we achieve, right? And back to your five buckets of stress. There's things we achieve in each of those. And if our focus is on the achievement itself, we have a lot of goal-directed behavior toward that, right? But if our focus is on the process, yeah, that's truly where the confidence digs in, right? Or we find that sense of resilience internally because we recognize we can get through anything. We can learn and grow in any situation, we can work with any mistake. And that's the core of confidence, right? Is the knowledge that no matter what comes your way, you're going to find a way through, whether it's accessing support, whether it's relying on your internal resources, whether it's calling on a higher power, whatever the system is that you have as in your support, the confidence comes in the process, not always just in the outcome.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Exactly. You said that so well. And that's one thing I was working on with a client who she's in seventh grade and was trying to make some more friends. And so I'm always giving homework to my clients. It's just like a simple assignment and they know this. Her job was to reach out to three friends from now until the next session. And it didn't matter if they wrote back, if they texted back, if they said no, they can't do whatever the thing was. It doesn't matter what the result is, it's that she tried. And did she make the three contacts? And if you make those three outgoing texts or whatever, that's gonna build so much confidence. She did it, she did the three things. That's all that mattered. And then she's like, Oh, yeah, I did. Like that was awesome, right? And then you can build from there. Things feed on themselves. And I think like that's where sometimes kids get stuck because your parents like get spiraled down or they spiral up, right? And so building on going in the right direction is just so helpful. And so finding those tiny wins, you know, if you have a kid who is hard on themselves, what did go well? What was successful? Like, oh, I had a bad day, my day was terrible, blah, blah. Okay, was what was good? Not was there anything good, but what was good? Was there a tiny thing good? Was there a little thing good? Was there something funny that happened? Right? Like you can always just go down to a micro. Oh, yeah, I saw my friend in the hallway. Great! You saw your friend in the hallway. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Yes, yes, I love that so much. And I think I always say I'm allergic to helplessness. There have been too many times in my life where helplessness has been something that I had to grapple with and work through. Then now I'm like, oh no, no, no, that's helplessness again. I'm allergic to that. I gotta, you know, I gotta find the way I can take action, right? And I think with parenting or with kids in different situations, it is like that spiral downward when we can't figure out what we can do. And there's just that sense of feeling stuck in the place where we are, whether it's again an outside support that we need, whether we need to learn or grow in some way, right? Or whether we just need to kind of admit honestly what's going on and then start from there. But if we can do those hard things, then the helplessness, it can start to get smaller and smaller and smaller because we're taking action and texting the three friends, right? Or we're having the hard conversation where we're like, okay, I know I feel uncomfortable listening to feelings, but I'm gonna do this because it's my kid and it's important, right? Or whatever it is, we move out of helplessness and immediately it's like you change the direction of the spiral because helplessness is never getting us anywhere.

Naming Feelings Without Getting Stuck

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, never, never. The other thing is also just our reminder of it's not gonna last forever, whatever it is. So maybe it's your child does need to vent, and some people are very allergic to their children venting, like it's too much, right? It's overwhelming to them. And so sometimes I teach my clients and the moms, the parents and the kids, mom, can I vent for five minutes? They put a time limit on it, or hey, kiddo, do you want to just let off some steam for 20 minutes right now? It doesn't have to be exact, you don't have to put a timer on, but just so that it doesn't feel like it lasts forever for either one. Because sometimes if a kiddo really does need to let off some steam, yes, we don't want to go into the helplessness, but maybe they just need to blow it off and then they'll feel better, right? So five minutes, 20 minutes, maybe not an hour. That might be the limit for some people, their comfort level. But to know that it's gonna end. This is not a permanent state that your kid is just gonna be going crazy forever on this one particular topic.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah, it's so well put. I like Becky Kennedy's metaphor of the benches. Have you heard that one? I love her, but no, I haven't heard that one. So she talks about I like to imagine Central Park, but she talks about emotions as benches and how sometimes we just have to sit on all the benches. Like life is gonna invite us to all the benches, and there's some benches that are gonna be our favorite. I like overlooking the Harlem Mirror, right? I don't really love the one that's by the trash can near the homeless people. That's not my favorite bench to be on in Central Park, right? But sometimes we end up sitting there to tie our shoe or to, you know what I mean? Like I made the metaphor bigger than what she the way she tells it. But the idea being that if you just need to sit on the bench for a minute, sit on the bench for a minute. Don't fight it. Sit on the bench and then like you're on to the rest of your life, right? And there's so many other things you can do and explore and see. But to your point about the time-limited nature of it, if you are able to recognize the different benches, like, oh yeah, there's that bench again, the more you sit on it, the more you can recognize it, the more your kid can recognize it, and the more you can just figure out what you need on that bench and get to another one. But if we fight it, that's when we're like, God, yeah, it is stuck. And it just ends up taking a lot longer, usually, because we're like, I'm not gonna sit on that bench, I'm not gonna sit on the bench, I don't want to be there. If our kid is like, hey, I am feeling really sad right now, I'm feeling really lonely, I'm feeling a little bit depressed or hopeless, and we can just go sit with them and be like, yeah, this is a rough place to be, right? But then it's like you said, if we're not there forever.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yeah, and to that point, I think while we're on the topic, it's worth mentioning just I assume this is something you do a lot of, but teaching the emotional fluency so that it's normal, natural language in your household, right? And so I got this advice when my kids were very little. So luckily I've had this amazing amount of time for just the simple I feel statements. So we used to go around at dinner because my oldest daughter, the one that was having the anxiety back then, that was actually the assignment that we got for her. And so it's just I feel this, I feel that. And my three younger kids picked it up really well. And so that's just so normal in my house. And then I talked to other families and they're like, What? You say your feelings? I'm like, yes. Right. And so, but but it takes years of practice. I spent years actually practicing myself naming the exact emotion because sometimes we think it's something, but oh no, wait, really, it's something else. And oh wait, yeah, that's the one. Oh, you gotta name it to tame it, like you were saying earlier, right? And then you're like, oh, okay. And it doesn't have to last so long. Once you figure out what it is, it can pass by much quicker.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Yes, yes, it's so well put. And that one of the things I was talking with my friend about over the weekend was that I like to use the feeling wheel or like mark brackets, how we feel app, or you know, there's so many great resources out there. Lindsay Brayman has the pillows and like the oh yeah, the emoji feeling wheels. But one of the things that I was saying was that the more granular you can get, the more specific you can be about the feeling, the more information you get, right? The emotion is information. And if we can see the information with a little more clarity or speed, again, we don't have to sit in it as long. We're like, oh yeah, that's jealousy again. I know what I need to do when I feel jealous. It means there's something about the situation that maybe I want to reach for, or that's something I feel like I could achieve if I had a little effort to put into it, or something like that. And so I think when we can get specific, we harvest or we are able to harness the power of the emotion in a totally different way than if we're nervous and a little bit opposed to knowing exactly what it is and saying it like feels something kind of like sadness, but I don't want to go any deeper because this feels scary to me. And that's all normal. But if you dive in and you say, No, that's loneliness.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

And then it's like with your client, you know what to do with that, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's very classic. A lot of times my clients think they're bored, and really what it actually is is loneliness. And so having them name that and then figuring out what the solution is. But I'm also really glad we're talking about this right now because it helps your listeners if they are looking for a coach or hiring you or looking for someone. Some coaches do bypass emotions quite a bit. We call it kind of like a spiritual bypass or emotional bypass where they're working so fast to get to the end result that they don't allow that emotion to process. And like we said, sometimes we just need a little bit of processing time. And then you go in the opposite end of the spectrum where if you're with a therapist, you might be spending hours talking about the emotion and days and years and months, and you never get to a solution, right? And so I like to just think of myself as kind of this happy medium. I am a coach, I'm not a therapist. I do allow my clients to vent. If they had a terrible week or a terrible day or something really embarrassing happened, yes, let's get it out. I can't coach someone who's not ready and they're not ready if this emotion is right here, it has to spill out and come out. And so we like, okay, let's get through that. Okay, now what are we working on this week? Right. And so I just wanted to point that out because I felt like that was important.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

I love that. No, thank you. Yeah. And I love the resonance that I'm getting from you as well in terms of just the importance of it, but also the importance of not getting stuck there. So let's move along. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

This has been amazing. As we close, talk to us a little bit more about what a calm, connected family culture looks like. We've talked about some of the elements of it today. Are there any other things you'd add that are part of that culture where we're building a sense of resilience, our kids feel safe seen and heard, and we feel that sense of connection regularly at home?

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Yeah, I think, well, first of all, what it's not is a perfect family, right? We are never shooting for perfect. We're never shooting for movie scene or a postcard or an Instagram reel or whatever, right? Like life is messy. This is messy. It's constantly a dance. There might be somebody who left for school today in a bad mood. I don't know, right? It's not that it's perfect, but what it is is that they know they feel safe. They know they can talk to me. They know that there's no judgment and there's no wrong emotion, and that we're working together, right? Because I have teenagers. And so what is happening is a lot. I have two that drive, right? And so it's this constant communication. We agree on a set of rules. We have agreed curfew. We have agreed what happens if they're running late for curfew. So a lot of times the work is done on the front end. It's we're talking about our values, what's important to us, why is this important to us as a family, right? I'm just using this one as an example, but the safety and being home and mom needs to know you're okay. And so that's why we have this procedure, right? But that's connection. What that really is is connection, right? If it was the opposite, there would be, you know, slam doors and screaming and yelling and fighting. And that doesn't mean that can't happen. It can, but there always is repair, there is conflict resolution, there's hugs, there's I'm sorry, right? And it's just for me, it's feeling like I have an emotional pulse. I have my pulse on each of my kids, kind of knowing where they're at on any given day. Like today, for example, I know that my son is tired. He was up late last night. I know he's a little worried about his algebra. I know my daughter is right, like I have four kids. So I'm like, yeah, right. Like I know the things. And so that's it. I don't know if I have like a one-sentence description, but just kind of this picture of connection and just being aware.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's so beautifully put. And I don't think there is necessarily a recipe other than that, where if we are tuned in on some level to the people around us and that we can provide the support that we're able to or access the support that we need in order to help when we notice things are a little bit off for an extended period of time, yeah, then giving ourselves some credit. Yeah, I'm doing pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And if there is something off, you know, it's important to notice that and kind of check in with your feelings about that. But then also, I always say kill the monster while it's a baby. So don't let it consume you where then you're not seeing things accurately. We want to see it accurately, but also being taking notes. Like my son has been really moody for two weeks. He's not eating as much. He hasn't talked to any of his friends in three weeks, right? Right. We need to pay attention to that. Take notes. If it's only been like that for one day, right? Don't make it a thing that it's not, but just be aware, be conscious, be plugged in.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Yes, a hundred percent. 100%. Well, this has been lovely. I I have learned a ton and I've loved chatting with you today, Laura. Help our listeners know where they can find you, where they can learn more about your coaching.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Absolutely. So my website is always kind of the hub of everything. So it's positively healthycoaching.com. There's all the links to my social media on there. And yeah, I'd love for people to come visit. You can schedule a free complimentary consultation if you just want to talk and see what's going on in your family, see if I can help, or sometimes I can't, and I know I can't, and I can direct you to someone else that I know that can. So yeah, positively healthycoaching.com is the place to find me.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

All right. Well, thank you again for being here.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Thanks for listening to the stress nanny. If you found today's episode helpful, be sure to share it with a friend who could use a little extra calm in their week. And if you have a minute, I'd love for you to leave a review. It helps other parents find the show and join us on this journey. For more tools and support, head over to www.thestressnanny.com. Remember, you don't have to do stress alone. Together we can raise kids who know how to navigate life with confidence and ease. Until next time, take a deep breath and give yourself some grace.